Blog Statistics

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

In which the American Family Association jumps on yet another report of supposed anti-Christian discrimination without realizing (or, perhaps, caring) that it’s completely bogus [original emphasis]:

Macy's has fired a Christian woman for refusing to violate her religious beliefs. Her offense? She prevented a man dressed as a woman from entering the women's dressing room.

According to Liberty Counsel, Natalie Johnson says she saw the young man walk out of the women's fitting room and politely told him that he could not go back in because it was for women only. The cross-dressing young man claimed that he is a "female." Johnson said that he was wearing make-up and girl's clothing, but clearly he was a male. The cross-dresser was accompanied by five other individuals.

The group argued with expletives[ooh, that’s how you *know* they’re wrong! —JM] that Macy's is LGBT-friendly, to which Johnson replied that Macy's is also non-discriminatory toward religion, and that it would go against her religious beliefs to lie that he was a woman or compromise with homosexuality. The group then demanded to speak with a manager.

Johnson's boss referred her to Macy's LGBT policy which allows "transgender" people to change in any dressing room they want.

The manager demanded that she comply with the LGBT policies or lose her job. Johnson refused to go against her sincerely held religious beliefs and was terminated from her job.

Macy's has essentially opened women's dressing rooms to every man. The LGBT agenda has become the theater of the absurd.

The only thing that’s absurd is the AFA’s predictably stupid and bigoted response. This is nothing more than blatantly dishonest framing of the issue; it’s more than a little reminiscent of last year when they accused the Home Depot of firing a “patriotic Christian” for wearing a “One Nation Under God” button (conveniently omitting the facts that he had been deliberately violating company rules for months and ignoring repeated warnings from his bosses before they finally put an end to his insubordination). The lesson is the same now as it was then: If you cannot follow your employer’s rules, you will be fired. Don’t like it? Then don’t work there. I fail to see which part of that is difficult to understand.

Of course, the AFA typically ignores the fact that an employer has the right (as they should) to fire anyone who doesn’t follow the rules they supposedly agreed to follow when they were first hired, and instead sets this all up as a scenario in which a good, upstanding Christian was unjustly discriminated against over her refusal to cater to teh ghey (not that gender identity is the same as sexual orientation, but then, you probably can’t expect these kooks to make such distinctions). In the end, it’s all about privilege – specifically, that Johnson was denied the right to be above the rules because of her “sincerely held religious beliefs” and was treated like any other employee. Because if there’s one thing the Christian-Right has shown that it won’t tolerate, it’s to be denied superiority over everyone else because of their faith, especially when they aren’t allowed to discriminate against other people over something that doesn’t concern them in the least.

Once again, just so it’s all clear: If you can’t abide by your job’s rules, then don’t work there. If you do, then shut up and put up. And if your disobedience gets you fired, not only do you lose the right to whine about it, but you fully deserve all the humiliation you get. Believing in Jesus does not magically exempt you from following the same rules as everyone else.

Comments ↴

You are welcome to post any comments and questions you may have, provided you abide by the blog’s commenting rules. You may use these HTML tags for style. You must register with Disqus to be able to edit your comments.

Some comments are occasionally caught by my spam filter by mistake. Please be patient while I get around to clearing it.

If Disqus fails to load, enable JavaScript and try refreshing the page until it works.

About Me

I’m a liberal skeptic, rationalist & third-wave atheist stuck in a rut in Québec, Canada and who spends his time composing, writing, drawing, harboring a layman’s passion for science and technology, getting angry at social injustices, and most of all, jabbing cretins and trolls with sharp pointy sticks. (Oh, and blogging.) Proud owner of a Nize Hat!, an indomitable SIWOTI syndrome and an itchy snark finger.

You can find all my musical, literary and artistic works at my art blog, Creativitas.